4 ms·

> something must be driving this phenomenon I’m going to go with a repeated exposure to propaganda designed to convince people that the election “WAS RIGGED” a

by glial 6y ago

> something must be driving this phenomenon I’m going to go with a repeated exposure to propaganda designed to convince people that the election “WAS RIGGED” and sow distrust in our system of government. The left certainly has some questionable positions, but the “stop the steal” movement is not rooted in fact.

throwaway894345 6y ago
The phenomenon in question is a sharp increase in the number of "post-truth" right-wingers--those people who can't be convinced by evidence alone that their position is wrong. This largely predates the most recent election and I would argue the rise began even in advance of Trump (although I think he was a coalescing figure which accelerated the phenomenon).
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  It's not just the right wing. The intellectual view that "all speech is about power, not truth" is much more prevalent among the left. Now, that wasn't a view that was largely held on the right. In fact, I suspect it still isn't. The "post truth" on the right are people who still believe in truth, believe that they have it, and won't listen to any evidence to the contrary. In fact, maybe this is the consequence of the "post truth" left - if the right believes that the left believes what the left says about speech, then the right has no reason to trust any truth claim coming from the left. But the change may in fact be as you say, that the post-truth people grew on the right. Now you can't sway chunks of either side with facts.
  - throwaway894345 6y ago
    You're absolutely right that there is also a post-truth left, but this thread is focusing on the post-truth right wing. Incidentally, the fix--restoring integrity to epistemological institutions--solves for both the post-truth right and the post-truth left.
    - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
      I'm not sure it does. The post-truth left is post-truth not because of lack of faith in epstemological institutions, but because of a different epistemology. You can't fix that by a more honest press. The right... if you had a more honest (or less biased) press, it might fix the post-truth right... eventually. Like, a decade or three later. You have to be trustworthy for a while before people will trust you. And yet, I wonder if that paragraph is true. Maybe I'm kidding myself, but I think I can tell when someone's presenting an ideologically varnished version of reality vs. when they're telling it straight. If reporters stopped being cheerleaders and started reporting, maybe people would figure it out faster than I expect.
      - throwaway894345 6y ago
        > I'm not sure it does. The post-truth left is post-truth not because of lack of faith in epstemological institutions, but because of a different epistemology. You can't fix that by a more honest press. No, I think a more honest press (and other institutions) ceases to reward illegitimate left-wing viewpoints. They have to play the game to get the credibility (and credibility is power) which is exactly what we want. If you want credibility for your tech-gender-parity position, it no longer suffices to make blank slatist arguments because an honest epistemological institution will expose that as anti-science. > Like, a decade or three later. You have to be trustworthy for a while before people will trust you. I think this might be true. I think it's a lot harder to earn trust than it is to break it. On the other hand, I think we can stop the bleeding (i.e., stop creating new post-truth people) rather quickly and in time those others will slowly become more moderate and/or more marginal and eventually (like all of us) die out such that our society moderates with time.
AnimalMuppet 6y ago
I've been thinking about Bayesian reasoning and propaganda. If you reason at least somewhat in a Bayesian way, and you're exposed to a repeated stream of the same lie, then if you update your priors at all with each exposure, you will eventually regard the lie as being probably true. And the main point of propaganda is to repeat the lie as often and in as many places as possible. But it isn't inevitable that people update their priors. Many people don't when exposed to advertising, for example. If we recognize propaganda, then maybe we can do the same. The problem with that is what throwaway894345 is talking about, that people decide that you're propaganda and won't listen, even if they are the ones who have believed the propaganda lie.

by glial 6y ago

throwaway894345 6y ago

The phenomenon in question is a sharp increase in the number of "post-truth" right-wingers--those people who can't be convinced by evidence alone that their position is wrong. This largely predates the most recent election and I would argue the rise began even in advance of Trump (although I think he was a coalescing figure which accelerated the phenomenon).

AnimalMuppet 6y ago
It's not just the right wing. The intellectual view that "all speech is about power, not truth" is much more prevalent among the left. Now, that wasn't a view that was largely held on the right. In fact, I suspect it still isn't. The "post truth" on the right are people who still believe in truth, believe that they have it, and won't listen to any evidence to the contrary. In fact, maybe this is the consequence of the "post truth" left - if the right believes that the left believes what the left says about speech, then the right has no reason to trust any truth claim coming from the left. But the change may in fact be as you say, that the post-truth people grew on the right. Now you can't sway chunks of either side with facts.
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  You're absolutely right that there is also a post-truth left, but this thread is focusing on the post-truth right wing. Incidentally, the fix--restoring integrity to epistemological institutions--solves for both the post-truth right and the post-truth left.
  - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    I'm not sure it does. The post-truth left is post-truth not because of lack of faith in epstemological institutions, but because of a different epistemology. You can't fix that by a more honest press. The right... if you had a more honest (or less biased) press, it might fix the post-truth right... eventually. Like, a decade or three later. You have to be trustworthy for a while before people will trust you. And yet, I wonder if that paragraph is true. Maybe I'm kidding myself, but I think I can tell when someone's presenting an ideologically varnished version of reality vs. when they're telling it straight. If reporters stopped being cheerleaders and started reporting, maybe people would figure it out faster than I expect.
    - throwaway894345 6y ago
      > I'm not sure it does. The post-truth left is post-truth not because of lack of faith in epstemological institutions, but because of a different epistemology. You can't fix that by a more honest press. No, I think a more honest press (and other institutions) ceases to reward illegitimate left-wing viewpoints. They have to play the game to get the credibility (and credibility is power) which is exactly what we want. If you want credibility for your tech-gender-parity position, it no longer suffices to make blank slatist arguments because an honest epistemological institution will expose that as anti-science. > Like, a decade or three later. You have to be trustworthy for a while before people will trust you. I think this might be true. I think it's a lot harder to earn trust than it is to break it. On the other hand, I think we can stop the bleeding (i.e., stop creating new post-truth people) rather quickly and in time those others will slowly become more moderate and/or more marginal and eventually (like all of us) die out such that our society moderates with time.

AnimalMuppet 6y ago

I've been thinking about Bayesian reasoning and propaganda. If you reason at least somewhat in a Bayesian way, and you're exposed to a repeated stream of the same lie, then if you update your priors at all with each exposure, you will eventually regard the lie as being probably true. And the main point of propaganda is to repeat the lie as often and in as many places as possible. But it isn't inevitable that people update their priors. Many people don't when exposed to advertising, for example. If we recognize propaganda, then maybe we can do the same. The problem with that is what throwaway894345 is talking about, that people decide that you're propaganda and won't listen, even if they are the ones who have believed the propaganda lie.